He made the turn at the landing between the second and third floors but froze as he heard a sharply indrawn breath in front of and slightly below him. Someone was coming up the stairs toward him.

“Jake?” a familiar voice said. “Jake, is that you?”

She had to have heard him. She knew he was there. But she might not be absolutely sure of his identity. He might have been another of Foster’s men. If he spoke, there was a good chance she would aim at his voice and open fire.

“Jake, if that’s you, you have to help me. I don’t want to do this anymore. It was all a terrible mistake, and I’m so sorry.” A pleading note entered Natalie’s voice. “Please, Jake, I’m putting my life in your hands.”

“Natalie,” he said. He couldn’t hold it back. Her name had formed on his lips before he could stop it.

Muzzle flame ripped through the gloom in the stairwell. The gunshot crashed against his ears.

The bitch!

Jake triggered three swift shots before he realized something was wrong. As he heard a soft cry, he realized what it was. The shot fired at him had come from lower down on the steps than Natalie had been when she was talking to him.

That meant someone else had fired it. The two of them weren’t alone in this stairwell.

That didn’t mean Natalie actually regretted what she had done and wanted to turn on Foster. Maybe she had just been trying to get him to talk so the other gun-wielder could zero in on him. That seemed more plausible than her having a change of heart.

He pressed himself back in the far corner of the landing and kept the pistol pointed down the shadow-choked stairs. The shot fired at him hadn’t struck him, and he hadn’t heard the slug hit the wall or ricochet off anything. A cold ball formed in the pit of his stomach as he realized where it might have gone.

A faint moan came from somewhere down the stairs. Then a grated curse in a man’s voice. Jake heard sounds like somebody trying to climb to his feet. A hand slapped quietly against the wall for support.

“Bitch,” the man muttered. “Could’ve told Matthias . . . not to trust her. Traitorous slut . . .”

Unsteady footsteps started up the stairs. Jake stayed where he was and waited, although that was difficult now.

The steps stopped. Jake made out a shadowy form bending over something on the stairs. Then he heard the man mutter, “The girl! But if I hit her—”

“That’s right, you bastard,” Jake said. “You missed me.”

Flame licked from the Glock’s muzzle as Jake fired three more times. The bullets ripped through the man on the stairs and flung him backward. He went down the stairs to the second-floor landing in a wild, out-of-control tumble. When he stopped, Jake didn’t hear him moving anymore.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Jake went down until he came to Natalie’s crumpled shape.

A part of him still didn’t want to trust her. A rattlesnake could still sink its fangs in you even after the scaly son of a bitch was dead. But Natalie wasn’t moving, and as Jake stuck the gun behind his belt and knelt on the stairs to take hold of her, he could tell how limp she was.

But not dead. He moved his hand to her throat and found a pulse there. It was fast but fairly steady. Jake lifted her, held her against him, and explored her body for wounds. His big hand found the wet, sticky spot on her back, a little below her right shoulder. There was no matching exit wound on her front. The bullet was still in her.

If it hadn’t struck a bone and bounced around to do a lot of internal damage, the wound might not be a fatal one. Natalie needed medical attention, though, and pretty quickly. He gathered her in his arms and stood up.

- Chapter 39